When I have a few hours to kill, my curiosity takes over and I get the urge to do a deep dive into my own psyche with the aid of ChatGPT.
During my latest foray into a personal chatbot personality examination session, I wanted to find out what my hidden strengths are. Being alive this long and taking note of my biggest wins has obviously exposed me to the main areas of expertise. But after having so many exchanges with ChatGPT that helped me uncover some of the parts of my individuality that I didn’t know about beforehand, I figured it was time to learn about my secret specialties.
With a loaded prompt to help me, I entered a lengthy discussion with ChatGPT that unveiled a bunch of qualities about me that I may be overlooking.
And after that intriguing back-and-forth with the chatbot, I found the best ways to make those hidden strengths more prevalent in the ways I conduct my work.
A fascinating Q&A
Presenting this prompt to ChatGPT kicked off this introspective look into my hidden and seemingly overlooked strengths:
"Act as a strengths coach and behavioral psychologist. Ask me 15 questions about my career, hobbies, relationships, challenges, accomplishments, and moments when I felt most energized. After I've answered all of them, identify 10 strengths that I may be overlooking. For each strength, provide evidence from my answers, explain how it shows up in my life, and suggest practical ways I can use it more intentionally in my career and personal life."
The chatbot immediately presented me with some fitting questions, such as “Think about a time in your career when you felt exceptionally proud of your work. What happened, what role did you play, and why did it matter to you?” and “When you're part of a team, friend group, or family gathering, what role do you naturally end up playing?”
I made sure to answer all 15 questions with as many personal details as possible — I spoke about my love for charismatic leaders, the subjects I cared most about back in school, what people rely on me for the most, etc.
One question stood out to me the most: “What behavior in other people frustrates you the most, and why?” I answered with, “Being uninformed. There are just too many devices and avenues that can help anyone learn about anything and find credible sources. Instead, people remain clueless and even refuse to learn how to use new forms of technology.”
Uncovering my hidden strengths and finding the best ways to showcase them
At first, ChatGPT shone a spotlight on my best qualities by stating:
Based on your answers, a pattern emerges that is stronger than "good journalist" or "creative thinker." You appear to be a curator of information, opportunities, and people. Much of your satisfaction comes from discovering valuable things before others do and helping those things reach a wider audience.
Then it mentioned my hidden strengths, provided evidence of why I exhibit that trait, how it shows up, a potential blind spot tied to that trait, and how to use it more intentionally. For instance, ChatGPT acknowledged my “Talent Spotting” abilities and displayed the following information to support its evidence of that skill being prevalent in my life:
- Evidence: You created an interview series featuring rising gaming creators, felt proud not because of traffic, but because you helped others gain visibility and you stay ahead of trends, releases, and emerging stories.
- How It Shows Up: You naturally notice potential before it becomes obvious to everyone else. Many people focus on what's already popular. You seem drawn to what's about to become important.
- Potential Blind Spot: You may underestimate how rare this skill is because it feels natural.
- Use It More Intentionally: Become known as the journalist who identifies future stars, build recurring columns around emerging talent and create prediction lists and trend reports.
The rest of ChatGPT’s observation of my hidden strengths made me aware of an affinity for information curation, intellectual curiosity, opportunity creation, resilience through adaptation, relationship building through conversation, memory for context & details, community intelligence, the courage to explore and service-based ambition.
The takeaway
I paid close attention to ChatGPT’s eye-opening findings about my hidden strengths and made a mental note of taking them into my professional life.
Making a more concerted effort to discover trends early across my subject areas, spotting creative talent before others do, connecting information from journalistic sources as well as online forums, translating the most complex topics into easy-to-understand knowledge and building communities through curiosity & conversation during my daily work sessions became more prominent.
Focusing on consuming and reporting as a journalist is commonplace. Publicly showcasing my wins more, leaning more into audience insights and building a recurring column that reflects my interests have come into the picture a lot more now that I make more use of my hidden strengths.
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